Pays tribute to the tireless dedication of Charles Perkins in fighting for human rights and social justice for Indigenous Australians; reflects on the civil rights gains in the United States and Australia in the 1960s; notes that human rights have received "bad press" over the last decade; there is no Charter of Rights in Australia, no constitutional recognition of the rights and status of Australia's First nations peoples, no treaty, and have not endorsed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; in 2008 there remains a pressing need to inequality in Australian society; considers a human rights agenda for Australian Indigenous peoples for the future, which includes: conceptualising poverty as a human rights issue; addressing the lack of formal legal protection of human rights in our legal system; and providing due recognition to the First Nations status of Indigenous Australians [p. 4]; discusses the human rights issues in relation to the Northern Territory intervention; notes the apology given to women in the Inteyerrkwe Statement by the men's health summit participants; governments should stop seeing Indigenous people as problems and recognise that Indigenous people and communities are the solution brokers [p. 10]

Index

no index present

Literary form

non fiction

Series statement

Charles Perkins memorial oration

Series volume

2008

1Instances of the Work "Still riding for freedom" - an Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander human rights agenda for the twenty-first century